How to Set Up Free Email Subscription Service with TinyLetter

“The money is in the list” is one of the most common expressions in the Internet marketing world. The concept is simple: get people to your email list and market to them. This is why most websites are offering email newsletters or free email subscription service. If you are just looking to market yourself and make a closer bond with your readers, and you hate to spend extra time and effort creating and maintaining an email list, one tool you can use is TinyLetter.

TinyLetter vs. MailChimp

When it comes to email subscription service, most people will have heard of MailChimp. What’s the differences between TinyLetter and MailChimp? We can say that TinyLetter is the simpler version of MailChimp. It’s easier to setup and use but lacks the bells and whistles of MailChimp. Here are some of the differences:

TinyLetter is free and allows its users to have up to 5,000 subscribers on their list compared to 2,000 combined subscribers on the free version of MailChimp.

Users can pay to upgrade their MailChimp accounts to allow more subscribers, while TinyLetter doesn’t have this option.

Users can send an unlimited number of emails in TinyLetter while MailChimp limits free users to six emails per month up to a total of 12,000 monthly emails (the maximum of six emails to 2,000 users).

You can only create one list on TinyLetter versus the multi-mailing list feature of MailChimp.

MailChimp comes with advanced features that are unavailable in TinyLetter such as A/B testing, detailed tracking, integration with other services, multi-user accounts, segmentation, geolocation, image hosting, and more.

Bottomline: if you are not an Internet marketer and need a simple and free email newsletter platform, TinyLetter is your answer. Otherwise, you can use MailChimp (or other paid alternatives).

Setting Up TinyLetters

As a platform that identifies itself with “Email for people with something to say,” the setting-up process is simplified for everyday people who don’t need all the bells and whistles of a business-grade email subscription system.

First, start by clicking the “Sign Up Free” button at TinyLetter homepage.

Then fill in your email address, username, and password of your choosing. Prove your humanity by checking the reCaptcha box, and click “Sign Up” to continue the process. You need to verify your email address before you can send any email from TinyLetter.

You will arrive at your account’s set-up page. Fill in the necessary personal information.

And when you scroll down a little bit, you can find settings for your newsletter. You can find options to set the newsletter name, write the newsletter description, receive notifications, and a secret email address to be able to send email directly from your email client.

Don’t forget to click the “Get Started” button at the bottom of the page.

Get Readers to Sign Up

The next step is to set up your email subscription form. Go to the “Design -> Subscribe Page.” This is the place to customize how you want your subscription page to look. There are several elements you can tinker with such as Background, Fonts, Colors, and Views.

Don’t forget to “Save Settings” after you are done with the design.

Then you need to get subscribers to your newsletter. TinyLetter provides you with two methods to do so.

A link to your subscription form. It will look like this: http://tinyletter.com/thurana – Of course, you will have your username at the back instead of mine.

An HTML code that you can embed on your site. The best places to put this code are the widget area, the pop-up menu, or within a specific page/post (for example, About Me page).

You can get this link and code in the “Share” menu.

Last but not the least, you can connect your TinyLetter account with your Twitter account. This will allow you to log in to TinyLetter using Twitter, invite new readers via Twitter, and show your Twitter handle at the signup page.

Integrating TinyLetter with WordPress

If you have a WordPress site and want to insert the newsletter signup form on your site, you can use the embedded HTML code. The simplest way is to insert it in the Widget area. Go to “Appearance -> Widgets” menu and choose Text.

Drag and drop the Text widget to the Widgets area that you want and insert the HTML code.

The signup form will appear in the Widgets area.

You can also use the code in a post or a page by inserting it under the Text tab.

Managing Your Newsletter

After everything is set up, you can start managing your newsletter. The management menu is also available in the left sidebar. “Sent,” “Replies,” and “Drafts” eill manage email writing and replying matters, while the “Compose” button is always available at the top-left corner of the page. The compose window looks similar to most email clients’ compose window.

Thetr is also is “Subscribers” menu where you can manage the list of email addresses that have already subscribed to your email newsletter, add new subscribers manually, or export the list should the need arise.

Now that you have everything you need to create and manage your email newsletter, you need to grow your list. Start spreading out the link to the subscription form and integrate it into your blog. You can also subscribe to my email newsletter.

Are you ready to start your newsletter? Do you think you need one? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.

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